


Accountability

by Bestboiuwu



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: 'i thought you were dead but now you're not what kind of fuckery is this', Ice Emporer fallout, Season 11, Talking, Trauma, accountability, fuck man I'm bad at tags, self blame, they briefly talk about Morro, they talk about Garmadon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25756012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bestboiuwu/pseuds/Bestboiuwu
Summary: "Zane, if I took it personally every time one of of my evil or otherwise-corrupted loved ones tried to kill me, where the fuck would I be?""Oh."This is some fucking a n g s t  boys!! Lloyd and Zane talk about some philosophical bullshit and then get into a bit of an argument.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	Accountability

Zane had been ready to die out there in the cold.

He was stranded, alone, with only one shot at starting up the mech and possibly getting out of there, and this shot had a not-insubstantial chance of being the thing that killed him.

He recorded a message for his loved ones, explaining who he was, explaining what he was doing.

He was ready to die.

He  _ wasn't  _ ready for whatever the  _ fuck  _ that was.

He wakes up, some Undefined amount of years, decades later, not really knowing what he was or who how but he was a protector, he was supposed to be protecting.

So he did, and the rest came back after that.

It had been a hase, the past (30, 40, 50?) years of his consciousness, but he was conscious. Sure, he didn't know who he was or why he was doing any of the things that he did, but he had a trusted source, an advisor, who's word he took as gospel.

Zane doesn't quite know how to look at the other trusted sources in his life, now.

They've been home for a week, and Lloyd finds him sitting outside on the front steps in the middle of the night. Zane had been noticably distant lately, so when Lloyd sits down next to him, clearly wanting to talk, Zane doesn't blame him.

"Hey, buddy." Lloyd says. "Still thinking about all that ice emporer stuff?"

"Yes." He says, softly. He doesn't quite understand how the others seem so ready to go back to normal. How they're treating him like a person, and not a monster, a dictator, who caused decades of pain and suffering- well, he supposed, I guess they missed the decades part.

"You really can't blame yourself, you know? There's no point, it's only gonna make you feel bad."

"I  _ hurt _ people, Lloyd. I hurt you. I went against my basic programming specifically and exclusively to do harm to others. We engaged in combat. I injured you. You were nearly killed."

"Zane, if I took it personally every time one of of my evil or otherwise-corrupted loved ones tried to kill me, where the fuck would I be?"

"Oh."

"It's fine! I'm fine. You just gotta learn to seperate out the bad parts from the good parts." He fiddles with his hair. "It wasn't my dad, it was some stupid snake. And after that it was the overlord, and after that it was Harumi." He pauses, moving his hand back down from his hair and tapping his fingers together. "A-and, it wasn't me, it was Morro. And it wasn't you, it was just some stupid asshole advisor who wanted power."

"But I also wanted the power," Zane says.

Lloyd shakes his head. "Not you. The scroll."

Zane pauses. "But don't you worry that that can rob people of having to take responsibility for their actions? I wish to be clear, I am not talking about you and Morro. You were doing everything thing you could to fight against the possession. But I am talking about other cases. As manipulated as I was, I was still conscious. I could've stopped it. What if… what if some people  _ deserve _ to take responsibility, they deserve to be viewed as evil, and you're just letting them off the hook?"

"I don't fucking know, man!" Lloyd gestures wildly with his hands. "I mean, sure sometimes I  _ wonder _ , I think about whether or not that actually  _ is  _ my dad, whether or not he should be held accountable for his actions, and if he fought against it  _ before  _ why can't he now, despite the fact that by all logic it should be easier-!" Lloyd cuts himself off. "But it's not. He's seperate, and I  _ have  _ to think about it like that, because otherwise it doesn't make sense"

"That's not the same. And even if it was, maybe you should hold him responsible, because I feel like  _ I _ should be held responsible-"

"That's such bullshit and you know it."

"No, it isn't!"

"We've all done shit, Zane."

"Not like this!"

"Yes, we have!" Lloyd stands up abruptly and starts pacing. "Okay, Remember when I was like, ten and I opened the serpentine tombs?"

"-Lloyd"

"And they summoned a big evil snake that destroyed half the city, and that killed Harumi's parents, and later  _ she _ brought back my dad, and he destroyed the city all over again, and killed like, way more people-"

"-Lloyd, you were 11."

"So an 11-year-old is defensible, and you're not, huh?" Lloyd snaps at him. "You had funky corruption magic on you, and you were being manipulated to shit by some incomprehensibly evil asshole" he ran both his hands through his hair as he ranted. "that's like, double whammy. All I had was stupid"

"Stupid, and traumatized, and 11"

Lloyd throws his hands up into the air. "Clearly, this conversation is getting us nowhere."

"Well I don't think that me, or your father, is in  _ any way  _ comparable to the actions you took when you were a child-"

"What about the time you died? Do you blame yourself for that?

"What?"

"The first time you died. Or, you know what, fuck that, all the other times too. Do you even know how many times? Fuck, I'm losing track myself, to be honest!"

"I-I don't understand-"

"It's three, right? Three times. The overlord, then the first realm, then the never realm four if you count your little  _ video  _ in the ice caves. And yes, I saw that little send off. 'Best friends anyone could ask for' my ass. If we were you wouldn't keep  _ doing _ this to us! Oh, sure, the others keep dying too, but you're the worst out of  _ anyone _ . Hi! I'm Zane! And I have to jump in front of whatever danger is in the room because I'm a self-sacrificing  _ asshole _ who thinks I'm more important than everybody else! Do you know how much it fucking hurts? How terrible it is to watch you die, watch you all die, over and over again? It is so much worse than  _ anything _ we went through in the never realm! Anything anybody went through in the never realm! I swear to god, one of these days you're going to be dead for real, and I'm not going to  _ believe _ you!"

Lloyd stops to catch his breath, panting, and he snorts up some snot that was running out of his nose because he was definitely crying, now. "So-So, if you can let yourself off the hook for that, you can let yourself off the hook for freezing some stupid people that got better anyways."

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a little all over the place, but fun fact, halfway through writing it I got too emotional and had to just lie down in my bed for half an hour, and it's way longer than most of the other fic I've written, so I figure it's worth posting. Hope you enjoyed!


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